In honor of St. Patrick’s Day and the “wearing of the green”, let’s take a look at some recent positive news about the environment:

Repurposing Plastics – On March 12th, 2018, Thomas Reuters Foundation revealed an encouraging story about Watamu, Kenya, a small Indian Ocean Resort village whose new mission is to take-on plastic waste. The country banned the sale and use of plastic bags in February and the environmental ministry is planning a plastic bottle buy-back program starting in April. Some of interesting and innovative things people have been creating with plastic refuse run the gamut from fences to furniture to houses, and even a plastic ship to raise awareness about recycling plastic. See for yourself here.

From Farmland to Forests – The Jackson Hole News and Guide reported to the Associated Press on March 13th, 2018 that more than 1.5 square miles of remote ranchland from the former Upper Gros Ventre River Ranch is being added to the Bridger-Teton National Forest, completing the largest land transfer to that national forest in years. The ranchland was donated it to the Trust for Public Land at the end of 2014 by former Democratic U.S. Sen. Herb Kohl. Money from the transfer ($3 million) will be put in a “land action fund” to support the protection of open space in Jackson Hole.

Getting the Lead – And More – Out! – Science Daily revealed on March 14, 2018, that researchers from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, and colleagues from University of California Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory may have found a commercially viable and environmentally safe way to remove heavy metals from municipal drinking water “in seconds.” The solution uses metal organic frameworks (MOFs) combined with a polymer to “quickly and selectively remove high amounts of heavy metals like lead and mercury from real-world water samples.” Samples with high concentrations of lead were reduced to 2 parts-per-billion, a level acceptable by both the EPA and the World Health Organization for drinking water.

Oklahoma Finally Faces Facts on Fracking – Reuters reported on February 27th, 2018 that the Oklahoma Corporate Commission established new rules to help reduce the risk of earthquakes at fracking sites in the central and southern part of the state. Fracking and related underground injection of fracking wastewaters have been repeatedly shown to cause earthquakes. Data from the Oklahoma Geological Survey revealed in 2015 there were 903 magnitude 3.0 or higher earthquakes versus just 41 of that intensity five years earlier – that’s an increase of 2,200%. Maybe it really is a good thing Scott Pruitt is in Washington instead of his home state… Good for Oklahoma, anyways.